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Published on: December 23, 2020
Detection of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA in the Human Eye
Alireza Kamalipour1, Mohammad Ali Ashraf2,3, Sasan Moghimi1
1Hamilton Glaucoma Center, Shiley Eye Institute, Viterbi Family Department of Ophthalmology, University of California, San Diego, California, USA.
Purpose:
To determine the presence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA in postmortem ocular specimens of patients with severe COVID-19 disease.
Patients And Methods:
Postmortem conjunctival (28 samples), aqueous humor (30 samples) and vitreous humor (30 samples) specimens were obtained bilaterally from the eyes of 15 deceased COVID-19 patients within one hour of death. The presence of viral RNA was evaluated in samples using Real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).
Results:
Positive RT-PCR SARS-COV-2 results were found in one conjunctival and 2 vitreous humor samples. All aqueous humor samples tested negative for the presence of SARS-COV-2 RNA. Of note, three positive samples were obtained from three different patients. The overall prevalence of positive RT-PCR ocular samples was 3.4% among all samples and 20% at the patient level.
Conclusion:
SARS-CoV-2 RNA is detectable in postmortem conjunctival and vitreous humor samples of patients with severe COVID-19.
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